True Peace
by linda.ljc
Summary: A history of the Between Times.


**Title: True Peace**

**Author: lindaljc**

**Summary:** A history of the Between Times.

**A/N:** Just a snippet of an idea.

Category: 10 Years in the Future, Gen, Drama, Sentient Atlantis, Peace in Pegasus

Characters: John Sheppard, Atlantis A.I., Wraith Commander

Warning: None

Disclaimer: The characters and settings of Stargate SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis belongs to Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Film Corporation. All other publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of Stargate: SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis or any other media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

_This story was written by lindaljc with the love of the show in mind._

...

John Sheppard stood at the balcony off the Control Room. It had been a long time coming... the True Peace. His hair had a little more gray than when he'd arrived in Pegasus, but he figured that happened if you lived long enough.

Peace. There was finally peace in Pegasus. The city A.I. had worked hard once she'd finally revealed herself... and that she was sentient. He grinned. Wasn't it just like a _woman_ to not be able to make a decision? Ten years before real contact. John couldn't fault her though. She'd done it. It had been hard enough just to come up with a plan. Getting everyone to agree was the hard part. But she'd come through in the end. Ten years, and finally peace.

The doors opened behind him. He didn't even bother to turn, he knew he'd come sooner or later and John had received the message that a Jumper was bringing a visitor. His visitor walked up to the balcony and stared out at the calm sea and bright sun.

The visitor stopped short of the railing, and he spoke contemplatively. "There was always doubt. That the True Peace was perhaps another deceit. I did not doubt the intent, but some things do not end as one wishes."

John turned to lean in his characteristic slouch against the railing. His visitor continued to stare out at Lantia's ocean, and although he didn't smile he was calm and relaxed. The endless vista did that to people. All kinds of people.

John had regrets, they all did, but the war was over. Time to put it behind them. "We made a lot of mistakes on the way. A lot of good people died."

The visitor sighed deeply, "I regret that it took so long to come to a compromise we could all agree to."

John knew it was the truth. But it never would have happened except for a meeting years ago that was not part of the plan of either of them. Neither realized how important that meeting would be to the peace they now enjoyed.

John knew that they both would agree that their civilizations had been at odds for too long. It was partly because of his visitor that the peace had happened at all. "We should be grateful for the peace we now have. Did you really doubt the City A.I. ... Atlantis' attempts to mediate during those last years? Did you believe she would betray you?"

"We practiced deceitfulness to sustain our own way of life, so how could we doubt it of her? It took a great deal of talk among our own to get anyone to listen at first. Most of the Command were adamant against it, as you know. And the others followed the Commanders, who followed the Queens. It was only after our meeting, you and I, that attitudes started to change. We call that era, the Between Times. There was great upheaval among the ranks but eventually the Commanders had to take control with the loss of so many Queens."

"The Between Times. Good name. And after?"

"After was the Peace Accord. And now, the True Peace, like your people, and ours, call it."

"You should tell your story, for the record."

"My story?"

"Your recollection of how we arrived at the True Peace. People would be interested, especially after we're gone. You know, for posterity."

The visitor chuckled dryly. "There is too much that _should be lost_ to posterity. It was not an easy armistice, and the years before were brutal."

"I didn't say you had to tell everything. Just what you'd feel comfortable with."

…

This is just one story of the City and of her descendants, but also about the City Program. Some came to call it the Between Times, which was not when the A.I. was alone with Dr. Elizabeth Weir, but after the Wraith woke early. There are so many stories of those years before the True Peace. I am here to tell my remembrance of the story and I am honored to do so. It is a strange story even for the Pegasus Galaxy. Maybe because it is the Pegasus Galaxy it isn't a story that could ever occur elsewhere.

There are heroes and villains, more than enough for all the long sagas written, sung, and remembered in oral histories. There was sacrifice and greed on both sides. But as most stories about this time, it would have to at least mention the meeting of Dr. Elizabeth Weir and a lone mechanical intelligence. The A.I. was created by the ones revered by Pegasus humans as the Ancestors; or the Ancients, as the Tau'ri know them; and Alterans, as the city knew her first people. But that was just the beginning. The Artificial Intelligence had a long time to wait to meet the Descendants. But eventually the ending of the Between Times brought the True Peace, and that is what is most important.

The Tau'ri were Earthborn. They were and are a proud people, and they were so confident of their abilities: of their belief that they would overcome all obstacles if only they worked long enough; if they fought hard enough; if they sacrificed enough; if they were smart enough; if they were quick enough. And they came to believe that those gifted with the Ancestors Blessings could lead them to victory.

Many did sacrifice themselves for their cause, yet Pegasus still nearly overwhelmed them. They _should_ have been overwhelmed. Their small force was not considered to be a creditable threat to the Wraith or anyone. Not only were they a small force, but many of them were non-combatants, civilians. There was no such thing among the Wraith. Of course, the civilian Tau'ri only _thought _they were not warrior-kind. But their efforts and their skills were formidable and in many cases changed the outcome of battles.

What should have been a concern to the Wraith was their discovery of the numbers on their homeworld. They knew it from the first meeting with the Tau'ri prisoner, Sumner. When the Queen that reigned during that period of hibernation learned of the _New Feeding Grounds_ she was overwhelmed by a most overwhelming avarice. It was the _only_ thing, the thing of _prime importance_, and all other discoveries were inconsequential... And she was able to broadcast the knowledge to all within the clans.

But that was all the information she, the Keeper, cared about and it resulted in the death of their military leader... and herself. All thoughts of the danger of such an adversary were insignificant at the time. She didn't care what she had to pay, she _must_ have the location. She _needed_ to find this place that caused such a _delicious hunger_ in her and all of the Wraith in all of the clans.

But this Tau'ri, this Sumner, had fought to his last breath to keep it's location secret, and his successor, John Sheppard, let it not be in vain. It was unfortunate that her fury resulted in a great mistake that led not only to her death but the escape of Sheppard.

But still, because of the successor Tau'ri's actions, the Wraith woke. It was most regrettable, for the Wraith, that Sheppard was able to escape. It may have been the biggest strategic blunder of all their encounters. That one action gave them time: time to regroup; to forge alliances; to find resources; to rally the remnants of some of the many worlds of Pegasus; and finally, to receive assistance from Earth that teemed with billions, and some of those also had the Ancestors Blessings. But it also had alien alliances as well as other enemies, and they learned much from allies and enemies alike.

Time was not on the side of the Wraith. Not in this instance. They might have been starving at times because they woke early, and their herds had not fully replenished themselves, but they were still far too complacent. Ten thousand years ago they'd driven out the Ancestors themselves. That victory had been sweet. What were these handful of foreigners compared to the Gate Builders?

The clues were there but were ignored. Who among the Wraith gave thought to the possibility that these few weak descendants were the true threat they proved to be? But they slowly discovered that the Tau'ri were tougher than they appeared. They were not Pegasus humans that had struggled just to survive for over ten thousand years. The Earthborn were a force unlike any they'd faced before, at least since the time of the Alterans, and perhaps not even then. Yes, they fought the Wraith, and many of them died, but they refused to believe they could lose. They never lost confidence, and why should they? Their first encounter, with the Keeper, cost the Wraith a hive. Smaller battles on subject worlds would cost more Wraith lives, and then more hives. And the cost to the Wraith kept growing.

Still, without _Atlantis_, the Tau'ri would have lost, and it slowly became clear to them that without those with the Ancestors Blessings they would also have failed. Without the descendants there would have been no Atlantis to be their fortress.

...

Some of Atlantis' history was learned after the defeat. Wraith called it defeat while others of Pegasus called it the Peace Accord. A slight difference of opinion that was a cause of rancor on one side and practically ignored by the other.

Atlantis had been created on Earth and certain of the Earthers wanted her as their own, and they seemed to have a _legal claim_ to the surprise, and fury, of most of Pegasus. Not that the Wraith bothered with legalities even among their own people unless it suited them. But the Tau'ri had legends in their own peoples _mythology_, but they forgot that the Ancestors and their Rings were_ in our lives_. But the reality of Atlantis was something unimaginable even to the Earthborn.

But Atlantis was not to be Earthward bound, not after it was learned that the Ancestors could have flown the city and left Pegasus for good. They had three zero point modules for power at the end of their siege, yet they left the city-ship behind. It seems obvious to anyone, at least those not of Earth, that Atlantis was not intended to be an Earth artifact. The argument was made, and made much sense, _legally_, that the Ancestors did plan to return, therefore it belonged to Pegasus and not the Milky Way.

To quote an Earth saying, _possession is nine tenths of the law_, which is humorous because in actual Earth law possession _proves_ nothing. But still, Atlantis was in Pegasus, and by all accounts had been left there purposely. It would have been extremely difficult to steal the city when the descendants who controlled it were not agreeable with the decision. Only when Earth was nearly defeated in battle did the descendants fly to their aid. But they came back. And they stayed.

The Pegasus Alliance, and of course the descendants of the Ancestors, were eventually successful in their _legal_ argument and so the City remains ours. Even the Wraith now have a claim on it since the True Peace, even with their dark past. After all, the Ancestors had _made_ the Wraith, and all of Pegasus had suffered since. And only the True Peace had given them pardon.

...

The ones that arrived from Earth were... not weak, but concerns from their own dark history pushed them to find some redeemable quality in the Wraith; some path that would allow them to let the Wraith survive. Genocide was _their_ word. It was unpalatable to them that the only plan they had was to destroy an entire sentient race. It was not something they believed in; luckily for the Wraith, especially when the Tau'ri discovered that the Wraith had once been human.

But there seemed no other way to proceed at the time because Pegasus human worlds were only seen as feeding grounds for the Wraith... by the Wraith. So, if not genocide, what other answer could be found? The Wraith could not live without the human's life force, but the humans were not at all amenable to being herd beasts for the Wraith.

Wraith had experimented on Pegasus humans, as the Ancients had experimented on Pegasus humans to create Wraith, so it was not surprising to them that the Earth/Tau'ri experimented on a number of Wraith themselves. None of their attempts were very successful, and in the end it only led to other atrocities and a war of attrition. Both races could see this was a path that would lead to the death of at least one race, and possibly both. If the Wraith had found a way to reach Earth, the story would probably be much different. But since they were contained in Pegasus, neither had a better answer than _fight to survive_.

…

John Sheppard told me of the Atlantis we have come to know since she awoke. But _awoke_ is not the right word, for she was aware for most of her existence. The question is still debated when, or if, she became sentient.

The Earth Tau'ri were as surprised as any other people that the Atlantis A.I. was sentient, and had been observing their actions since their arrival. It was only much later that they learned that the A.I.'s isolation from the Alteran's Descendants had been an internal determination and not some type of malfunction. She had been watching and waiting for the right time to reveal herself. And unless some necessity would force it on her, it was her secret.

But the A.I. had subtly been in contact with those with the ATA gene, and John Sheppard was one of those, perhaps the one most receptive of her awareness. She was not human, not biological, and she was at least in part mechanical. She reminds me most of the partly organic constructs on the Wraith hives, but there was never any indication that they were sentient.

She watched the Tau'ri from the day of their arrival, but without truly interacting with her newly arrived descendants her estimation of their true character was badly hampered. She had felt that she knew them from listening to Dr. Weir during her long sojourn during the millennia from Janus' time to this, ten thousand years later. She had nothing to compare the actions of her descendants to but her first people, the Alterans. Were they Alteran or Tau'ri? What was the difference, if there was a difference? She watched and she waited for their own actions to provide the clues she would need to make a choice of how to interact or reject these, her new people.

Her decision to act, or not, was not an easy one for her. So many events caused her to hesitate and doubt her own estimation of the situation. She would have been surprised that that trait was one of her most sentient features. I think she would have been surprised at the comparison. She had always thought of herself as a hyper-rational construct, and being indecisive was simply not rational. This made it all the more probable that she was sentient and not a machine intelligence by the time her descendants arrived.

...

The Wraith had been twisted by manipulation of their genetics by the Alterans. But what of the Genii? Why were they such a nightmare society? How did they produce someone like Kolya? The Tau'ri didn't know the depths of evil, of betrayal, they were to meet on that world.

The Wraith were well aware of the Genii, because of their use of their limited telepathic abilities which gave them a great advantage over Pegasus humans and Tau'ri alike. They knew from culling some of the Genii people for questioning by their Queens that they were getting too technologically adept. And in truth, they were poisoning their herd with their experiments. They would have been destroyed soon, like Sateda, but circumstances delayed the final culling of Genii, and so they still survive to this day.

Their great evil, Kolya, was a name synonymous with _deviant_ in most of the Alliance, and _psycho_ by the Tau'ri. Torture was a preferred method of his, and the defeat of his naively planned invasion of Atlantis made his name anathema to those of the Tau'ri.

There is no fondness for his memory from any camp, but that is another story I will share a bit later. It will also shed light on how the True Peace came to be.

Kolya managed to capture Sheppard, and attempted to force the surrender of Atlantis. It proved to be a foolish idea. John Sheppard was the central figure in many of the Between Times stories, and if there had been a way for Atlantis to intervene and retrieve him at that time, it might have been the turning point that would have forced an all out war that would have ended with the genocide of the Wraith.

But still, Atlantis kept her silence. It was an impasse at that point. Atlantis had no power to end the standoff at that time. But she remembered the circumstances of his escape.

…

But perhaps the greatest test to the A.I.'s choice of isolation was the arrival of the Tria and their expulsion of the Earth Tau'ri. At the time the A.I. hesitated to contact their crew as the sentient being she now was, because they were like all Alterans before them. They treated her like a tool, something created to perform a function for it's creators, like they had intended of the Wraith and also the Replicators. She'd had too many years of her own thoughts and decisions to go back to mindless obedience.

Then she saw their astonishment that the Replicators attacked in an attempt to destroy their creators despite their original programming. If she had to choose a side, which would it be in this case? It's puzzling to me why she didn't choose the Replicators. They were after all a community of machine intelligence. Yet they certainly had no love for any biological life.

But she still waited, and perhaps it was simply because of her long association, and even creation by, biological lifeforms. I believe that she had probably, in her machine heart, had already truly made her choice, and when the Tau'ri arrived and forced the Replicators out, I think her choice was validated and was now secured for all time.

...

But during this time the Atlantis A.I. had conceived a plan. It was a logical extension of her knowledge of Wraith biology and it was based on their need to hibernate to extend the time of replenishment of their herds. When they were awake, they were voracious marauders, taking all they wanted, when they wanted, and barely able to spare the few that were needed to let the human populations survive. This, she knew, was their weakness, and it had to stop.

The human population, which now included the Tau'ri, had a chance to correct the evil the Alterans had done to their _experimental subjects; their biological constructs; their living sentient tools_. With the information in her data banks, plus Tau'ri techniques, it might be enough to undo the evil. With Dr. Beckett's research added to her own, it should be possible.

So her plan was simple, but was it impossible? Could the Wraith be convinced that it wasn't a trap? Could she convince the Wraith to extend their hibernation until a solution was found? Carson Beckett had been so close, and if the A.I. released the Alterans original data, he would have the information that was missing from his own research.

But it would require the extended hibernation of all Wraith, all hives. The length of time needed might be a danger to them. And what would be their gain? For the humans there would be no more culling of human lives. It would mean the end of the Wraith War. For the Wraith it would end the threat of genocide, but their biological advantages would be lessened if not lost: their healing powers to the point of near immortality. So there were pros and cons, and the war of diplomacy had begun.

The Wraith had to be convinced that they also would gain. The war was decimating the Wraith, for one thing. Another point was that the infighting among the clans was almost as destructive as the war with the Tau'ri and the new Pegasus Alliance. There was near panic among the Wraith as some clans had lost their queens, and with them the ability to rebuild their population.

Genocide was something neither side wanted, not in truth. The Tau'ri abhorred the idea yet couldn't allow the further wholesale slaughter of human villages, and sometimes whole worlds as the Wraith grew more desperate.

Yet the Wraith needed the humans to live or they would die anyway. Their attempt to beat them back to pre-interstellar technological abilities was not feasible, no matter their lust for the billions of lives Earth harbored. They would have to defeat not just Earth but any other civilizations that existed in their galaxy. Their hopes dwindled with every loss.

So, become quasi-allies? Or continue on to their own genocide? I think the Queens would have fought to the death, but the Wraith Commanders at the end far outnumbered the Queens. Their influence over the drones and the great losses as the war and the civil-war continued finally overcame the Queens' obsession.

Still, the Wraith feared a trap and their own extinction while they slept. If true conversion could be discovered or rediscovered, then the Wraith would revert to human form; their original form before the Ancestors meddled with their DNA. The Wraith questioned whether the Tau'ri would honor their promises to them even in human form and with full pardon. _Trust_ was not really a concept appreciated even among their own kind, because when supplies were low, and need was great, they would turn on their own kind for sustenance.

...

Then came the one thing that managed to bring everything to a halt.

The A.I.'s revelation of her true self was a shock to all the combatants. Such was the impact, that the Atlantis A.I. Was able to force a short truce. She decreed that all factions _would_ comply for one standard Pegasus day. The leaders of the Alliance and the Wraith Council were ordered to attend a conference that would be held on Atlantis. Both sides presented arguments against this, but the A.I. _demanded_ the presence of everyone ordered to attend. They were told they would receive one more argument, and then they were to decide... once, and for all, if the truce would be extended or war would be resumed and _winner take all_.

Then all would be allowed to return to their own planets or ships to make their decision. If someone tried to break the truce with sabotage, that being would be transported to one of the sections of the Wraith Cage, whether the action was by human or Wraith. This _policing_ would be done by Atlantis herself and the conference would continue without them or any arguments they might have put forth.

Those invited were wary, but they came, because since the A.I. had chosen to reveal herself and intervene... to interfere... everyone was afraid not to at least listen to what she would say. She requested that everyone enter the conference room used by the Tau'ri.

Quiet immediately descended as an apparition appeared to the assembled. It took a human form, whether Ancestor or Tau'ri no one could tell. Yet afterward, everyone claimed it had stared into their own eyes relentlessly. If humans and Wraith claimed to have souls, then they would have sworn she had seen to their depths.

"I see you have all assembled here today at my request. Everyone has been most circumspect and orderly, for which I thank you. I promised I would not keep you long, so I will begin my last and final argument to you, _all of you_, who are all my people of Pegasus: the humans, who have lost so much to the depredations of the Wraith; the Tau'ri, who arrived unaware of what they would face; and the Wraith themselves, who kill to survive because they must, because they were forced to that life.

"I'm sure you all are wondering what this last bit of reasoning to sway the doubting Queens and Commanders could be. I'm sure they think a deception will become obvious soon enough, but in truth, I assure you that the Tau'ri and even some of the Pegasus humans do not wish your deaths on their conscience.

"My argument is simple, and maybe naive that _one instance of trust _may sway you, but this is my hope, that one decision made on faith will inspire you to make the same leap.

"Everyone knows of Kolya, _the profane_. He hoped to break the will of Atlantis and the Tau'ri by using one captive, a starving Wraith Commander to torture a newly captured hostage Tau'ri. I believe most of you know the story. But do you?

"Both were hostages, both were tortured, both were near death, yet they managed to form an alliance to put aside their differences for the most important thing: escape from their captors; to end their torment. But the most important fact to the future of Pegasus is this... _they both kept their word to their enemy_. When they were free they let the other walk away when either one could have killed the other."

It was true that most knew the story, yet coming after so much conflict over so many years it was still a startling reminder to both factions. Indeed many had thought it a joke. Who would let a Wraith walk free? What Wraith would let a human go, no matter the oath they had taken after captivity and torture?

That was the point where their revered Wraith Commander, who had never truly considered that peace could ever be achieved, began to hope... a very alien concept: peace with humans, with their food. The Wraith had always had their worshipers, but they were no more than collaborators to them... traitors to their own kind; men without honor. But even Wraith knew humans were sentient beings, but sentient beings had created them. And in among the hunger and the need, there was consciousness of what they were doing and some were not truly at peace with it.

The Tau'ri had had little experience with Wraith honor until that time. But John Sheppard had made an oath with a Wraith Commander. They fought side by side and escaped their oppressors. And if both beings honored their oath, was it possible for both sides to overcome the bitterness, hatred, and fear that had been the center of their lives? Was trust possible? Could there be hope?

...

I believe the A.I. considered this question of honor, of promises made and kept, very seriously. It confirmed her hope for her new people as well as all of Pegasus. She very deliberately bet all the lives in Pegasus on this one hope.

Yet the A.I. was shrewd. She made no mention of one other factor that entered the equation for the Wraith. The Replicator war had just been concluded by the destruction of their home world and the destruction of all remnants of the Replicator fleet. This was accomplished by a Tau'ri Coalition. This Coalition hadn't yet changed it's focus to the Wraith.

Yet it was one more reason for the Wraith to give serious consideration to the Tau'ri offer of conversion. No one doubted their mistrust of the Peace Accord. They were expected to give up the life they knew and return to a life they had never lived.

So the Wraith had a decision to make. Would they accept the hope of an honorable truce or tempt a frighteningly effective Coalition, escalating war, and possible genocide for their future.

Negotiations were still hard fought and fraught with fears of deception, but in the end Atlantis and her people and allies prevailed and the agreement offered by the A.I. was accepted by the Wraith: the entire Wraith population would enter hibernation until the process of conversion was perfected or until they would have to re-awaken to feed to survive.

The A.I. of the city of Atlantis pledged her own oath to the Tau'ri and Pegasus Coalition, to offer all possible assistance with research into the project and together they guaranteed a Peace Accord with the Wraith with full pardon upon Conversion.

With this pledge by all humans and the city itself, the Accord was signed, sealed, and the Wraith immediately entered hibernation with only one stipulation: one of their hives would hibernate on Lantia itself, and they were the only ones to know where the rest of the fleet hid as it slept. When the process of Conversion to human form was perfected and completed with the one hive, then all would join with them to fulfill the process of Conversion to human form for all.

And it was. And they did. And the True Peace began.

...

This is the story as I know it. A story of the Between Times and the Pledge given and accepted, and the promise that Atlantis, Tau'ri, and Pegasus humans would join with the former-Wraith for the beginning of the True Peace.

Signed in truth as I know it,

Todd

Oath-Brother of John.

End

.

com/What-does-possession-is-9-10-of-the-law-mean

Possession is not title of property.

The adage is not literally true, that by law the person in possession is presumed to have a nine times stronger claim than anyone else, but that "it places in a strong light the legal truth that every claimant must succeed by the strength of his own title, and not by the weakness of his antagonist's."

Possession is nine-tenths of the law is an expression meaning that ownership is easier to maintain if one has possession of something, or difficult to enforce if one does not.


End file.
